Fellowship: Part 3 - The Prerequisite of Fellowship

 

Part 3 - The Prerequisite of Fellowship

This is a series of articles on our fellowship together as believers in Jesus Christ.  It is taken from lessons learned from the epistle of 1 John.  While that letter was written as a defense against false teaching, an significant part of that defense throughout the letter is the  importance of knowing, understanding, and living out the ideals of Christian fellowship – that is, being IN Christ with the rest of the body of believers.  

These first few articles in this series come from 1 John 1:1-10.  If you have not already done so, I would encourage you to pause and go read them now.

 

Waiting….

 

Welcome back.  In Part1 of this series, we defined the greek word for fellowsip, koinonia, as the act of sharing and participating in life through a close personal bond and we pointed out that, as Christians, our bond of fellowship is Jesus himself.

In Part 2 this series, we discussed that the basis for our fellowship is the gospel.  More specifically, it is the unity because of our common fellowship with the heavenly Father that is made possible because of the gospel.

In this article, we want to look at the prerequisite of our fellowship.  How can we begin to experience and live that fellowship?  The answers are found in verses 5-7 of chapter 1, which read:

 

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. (ESV)

 

You may recall from Part 1, that I have adopted 1 John 1:7 as the key verse in this whole series.  Take a moment and read it again… carefully.  That verse gives us the answer to the question.

 

The prerequisite to koinonia is walking in the light.

 

Of course this immediately begs the question, what does it mean to walk in the light?  It reminds me of when Jesus was talking to his disciples right before going to Bethany to resuscitate Lazarus.  In John 11:9-10, in response to his disciples concerns about possibly being stoned to death if they go to Bethany, Jesus said:

 

“Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” (ESV)

 

Think for a moment about what light represents.  Light represents the ability to see and the ability to know where you are going and what you are doing.  But it is so much more than that.  In fact, one cannot ignore what John says in verse 5 here – that God himself is light.

 

To walk in light is to walk in the ways of God.

 

That seems like a bit of an overstatement of the obvious, but it the foundational truth of being a part of the fellowship of Christ.  We cannot consider ourselves to be in true fellowship with God and, therefore, in true fellowship with other believers if we are not ourselves walking in the ways of God.  If we have not committed ourselves to walk in his ways, then we cannot genuinely call ourselves believers. 

Unfortunately, if you are like me, you need something a little less abstract than just “walk in the ways of God”.  So let me give you something a bit more concrete.  Let me give you three aspect of walking in the ways of God that you can begin working on today.  The first is truth.

#1. To walk in light is to walk in truth.  Light is used as a metaphor to represent all that is good, right and true. Unfortunately, we have reached a point where society has perverted the idea of truth.  But Jesus taught us how to determine the truth.  In his high priestly prayer in John 17, Jesus prayed these words

 

Sancify them in the truth; your word is truth.

 

But we know from John 1:1 that Jesus himself is the incarnation of the very word of God.  And in John 14, Jesus says

 

I am the way, the truth, and the life…

 

Walking in truth means following the path set before us by Jesus.

#2. To walk in the light is to walk in transparency.  Light is used to reveal that which was previously hidden.  This is true for our lives as well.  We cannot be walking in the light when we keep part of our lives in the darkness – hidden from each other. Trust me when I tell you there is great freedom in not bearing all those burdens alone. Some of you guys are going to die and stand before Jesus and one of the questions you are going to ask is “Why was my life so hard and difficult”.  And his response is simply going to be “because you didn’t live it in fellowship with other believers”.  It’s pretty simple when Galatians 6:2 says

 

Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

 

We are not meant to bear all these burdens alone. There are lots of reasons we don’t feel comfortable living in this kind of transparency. One of them is because of our own pride – our unwillingness to accept we cannot do things on our own. That we cannot overcome our own weaknesses or that we somehow need help.  That is pride and God opposes the pride – but he exalts the humble.  Another reason we are unwilling is because of fear.  We simply don’t trust each other with our secrets – and probably for good reason.  Nevertheless, true Christian fellowship should be a place of absolute safety – where we can share even our darkest secrets without fear of judgment or condemnation.

#3. To walk in light is to walk in love. Not to get too far ahead in this walk through 1 John, but take a peek 1 John 2:10-11

 

Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him[b] there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. (ESV)

 

Walking in light is a prerequisite to fellowship, but our love towards one another is an indication of the extent to which we are walking in light. If we don’t truly love one another, we cannot truly be in fellowship with one another. This is the nexus between love as one of the key themes of this letter and our koinonia with each other.

 

Without love, there is no fellowship.

 

Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the concept of love has been distorted and perverted.  We are not talking about a selfish, emotional, “this is how I feel”, “the heart wants what the heart wants” kind of love that we are talking about here.  John is referring to godly love.  Godly love is unconditional, selfless, and always seeking the good of the other person.  It is a love that transcends romantic love.  It is a love that transcends familial love.  And it is a love that transcends the love we have for our closest friends.  It is a love God has for us and for which he expects us to show to others.  I encourage you to take some time to go read 1 Corinthians 13.  There you will find the kind of love we are talking about here.

 

After chapter 1, we actually will not see the word fellowship appear again – because the rest of the letter is all about what it means to be in the fellowship and how to be certain you are a part of the fellowship. So before we go any further, let me ask you a few important questions about your fellowship with believers based on these ideas of walking in the light.

How is your walk with God?  Are you walking in truth – that is, are you walking in the ways of the incarnation of truth itself, Jesus?  Do you live by his example?  Are you walking in transparency?  Or are you keeping secrets.  Are there parts of your life that you are keeping hidden?  Are there areas in which you know you need help but are unwilling to seek that help from fellow believers?  Are you walking in love? Do you love one another with the same kind of love that God has for you?

I dare to say we all have some work to do here, which means we can all experience an even greater level of fellowship that we currently experience.  It is something to look forward to and something to work on with the help of the Holy Spirit guiding us.

 

But we are not quite done with chapter 1 yet.  There is still a little more to glean here.

 

Next: The Result of Fellowship

 

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.   Ephesians 3:20-21 (ESV)